Jean Grémillon During Occupation (Criterion Collection)

Though little known outside of France, Jean Grimillon is a consummate filmmaker from his country's golden age. A classically trained violinist who discovered cinema as a young man when his orchestra was hired to accompany silent movies, he went on to make almost fifty films which ranged from documentaries to avant-garde works to melodramas with major stars in a career that started in the mid-1920s and didn't end until the late 1950s. Three of his richest films came during a dire period in French history: REMORQUES, starring Jean Gabin, was begun in 1939 but finished and released after Germany invaded France, and LUMIHRE D'ITI and LE CIEL EST @ VOUS were produced during the occupation. These are character-driven dramas that reveal either a society on the precipice of doom or people breaking free of societal limitations; humane, entertaining, and technically brilliant, they show Grimillon to be one of cinema's true hidden masters.